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Hit Bottom? Time to Get Up!
This week’s guest blog is written by Craig Ing, an International Performance and Personal Development Consultant and writer for the Huffington Post. For over 20 years Craig has been working with professional athletes, individuals and corporations focusing on developing, increasing and maximizing high performance as well as creating harmonious environments. You can contact Craig at: craig@craiging.com or visit his web site: http://www.craiging.com/

When I started writing for The Huffington Post, I considered working my articles up to a crescendo full of helpful steps. Setting the stage with the first few articles, where I would cover some basic principles of living life, followed by increasingly intense topics tackling everyday issues head on. However, I have been receiving emails from readers that have caused me to reconsider this approach. So I’m throwing away the slowly but surely style, and jumping straight in to try and provide some much sought after guidance. So where do I start? At the bottom, of course.

Hitting rock bottom is a scary and often confusing time. It is that moment when nothing makes sense, and you cannot understand or interpret your own thoughts, let alone the circumstances you find yourself in. It is the moment when you don’t know which way to turn to get help, or even if there is any help to be had, whilst all the while not really sure whether you even need that help. It brings powering feelings of being alone, yet standing in the brightest spotlight with everyone looking at you. You feel so apart and distant from yourself that it is hard to contemplate that your own heart, arms or legs are even part of you. Previously perceived small, simple tasks feel like climbing Everest. You know when you hit bottom.

However, the first thing to realize about “the bottom” is that everyone has a different threshold as well as definition for it. Secondly, that threshold and definition will keep changing through your life as you experience more and more challenging circumstances. The “benchmark,” as I call it, will evolve as you get older. When you were a child, hopefully the worst thing you experienced was falling over or falling off your bike. Then a few years later, your benchmark may have been altered to when your boyfriend or girlfriend dumped you. Later still, you may have lost your job and had to deal with the challenges that introduces.
And so your benchmark keeps changing. What doesn’t change though is the feeling of utter shock, confusion, fear and all consuming distress that is always present at the bottom. Have you heard the expression “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?” I truly believe that as your benchmark changes, so too does your ability to “deal and heal.”
Was I better prepared to deal with my sister’s tragic death because I had already experienced my dad dying? Was I better prepared for my dad dying because I had already experienced my parent’s divorce? Was I better prepared for my parents divorce because I had experienced break-ups in my own relationships and could understand that sometimes things don’t work out?

My first article was about preparing for suffering, and whilst this is really great advice to put into practice, I do know that it does not help those people already dealing with such challenging circumstances. It does not help people get out of the dark holes they are finding themselves in right now. When I work with new clients, we first focus on creating a stable, happy existence. To achieve that we must deal with anything current that is even slightly putting our sensitive scales of happiness out of balance. I say again, preparation is the key to future suffering but we must deal with the here and now. So below are the pointers I provide to clients to help start the “dealing, healing process:”
- Give yourself a break. This is about creating a mental attitude where it is okay to be confused, to be scared, to not understand. Just because your situation may not be as serious as being diagnosed with a terminal illness, it does not mean you don’t have the same mountain to climb to deal with your particular present circumstances. Just because you have an alternative benchmark, does not mean you are not allowed to feel the same feelings and have the same emotions as someone with a terminal illness. Forget what others may be dealing with and allow yourself to deal and heal with your own suffering, your own benchmark. If you have lost your job, very quickly the mental conveyor belt will sprint a race towards “not earning an income equals not paying your bills equals losing the house equals losing your family”. This is very similar for those diagnosed with a terminal illness, with the exception that they also have the mortality perspective to deal with. Giving yourself a break means allowing yourself to prioritize your own challenges and take steps towards dealing and healing. If you ignore your own plight with the view that “what have I got to be moaning about,” you will definitely create a deeper seated issue to bite you later. Give yourself a break!
- An alternative perspective. It is very important that you focus on the positives and on alternative perspectives when trying to deal with challenging circumstances. It allows you to envisage that things could be worse. Preparation is by far the best tool for proactively helping you deal with future suffering, however, we do not all have the luxury of “future suffering” as we are dealing with it right now. So a slight change to the technique can also be used when in the motions of dealing with something in the here and now. By focusing on finding out how your particular situation could be worse, you are in effect altering your benchmark in real time. This step allows you to gain a little positivity in the absolute present because you know that the situation is not as bad as it could be. It does not matter what you are facing at any time, if you have not prepared for it, you can definitely find some elements that could be worse. From a little positivity you can produce life changing or situation altering results. An alternative perspective creates positivity.
- Move and Do. Nothing is going to change if you don’t create movement. So from a position of positivity, even if created in real time, you will find yourself more capable of making a change. You must put one proverbial foot in front of the other to better your situation. Move and do, and your situation is at least in danger of becoming a better place in which to live.
I am under no illusion how tough things are right now; that is precisely why I am focusing on providing some guidance that will hopefully make a difference. If you have lost your job and have applied for 50 vacant positions without success, I know how hard it can be to post another application with any amount of positivity. I know how hard it is to pick yourself up when it feels like the banks and financial industries around the world not supporting us, and the governments not implementing any real support policies that make a difference to the people on the street. But, things will not change in your own individual playground by itself.

Create a positive place by considering an alternative perspective and move!

Craig Ing, is an International Performance and Personal Development Consultant and writer for the Huffington Post. For over 20 years Craig has been working with professional athletes, individuals and corporations focusing on developing, increasing and maximizing high performance as well as creating harmonious environments. Visit Craig’s web site at: http://www.craiging.com/

Craig would love to hear from you, so please leave a comment or send Craig an email at craig@craiging.com.

Follow Craig Ing on Twitter: www.twitter.com/craiging
March 10, 2012
Forget Willpower! Stop Mindless Eating (and Other Bad Habits) Through Disruption

This week’s guest blog is written by Heidi Grant Halvorson. Dr. Halvorson is a rising star in the field of motivational science. Heidi is the Associate Director of the Motivation Science Center at the Columbia University Business School. She is a an expert blogger for Fast Company, The Huffington Post, and Psychology Today, as well as a regular contributor to the BBC World Service’s Business Daily, the Harvard Business Review, and SmartBrief’s SmartBlog on Leadership. Her writing has also been featured on CNN Living and Mamapedia. Her new book “Succeed: How We Can All Reach Our Goals”, and her Harvard Business Review ebook, “Nine Things Successful People Do Differently” are available on Amazon.
You can contact Heidi at heidi.grant.halvorson@gmail.com

Do you snack every night in front of the television? Do you drink a little too much when you are out with your friends? Do you ever find that you’ve smoked a whole pack of cigarettes, bitten off half your nails, or eaten an entire bag of Doritos without realizing you were doing it?

That’s the real problem when it comes to ridding yourself of bad habits – back in the beginning, when the behavior was new; it was something you did intentionally and probably consciously. But do anything enough times, and it becomes relatively automatic. In other words, you don’t even need to know that you are doing it.

In fact, as new research shows, you don’t even need to want to do it. If you develop the habit of snacking in front of your TV at night, how hungry you are or how tasty the snack is will no longer determine whether or how much you eat.

Many bad habits operate mindlessly, on autopilot. They are triggered by the context (e.g., watching TV, socializing, feeling stressed), rather than by any particular desire to engage in the behavior. So, the key to stopping a bad habit isn’t making a resolution – it’s figuring out how to turn off the autopilot. It’s learning to disrupt the behavior, preferably before it starts.

Take for example a recent study of Movie Theater popcorn-eating. Researchers invited a group of people to watch fifteen minutes of movie previews while seated in a real movie theater. They gave the participants free bags of popcorn, and varied whether the popcorn was fresh or stale. (The stale popcorn was actually a week old, yuck!) Then they measured how much popcorn each person ate.

Not surprisingly, everyone who got the stale popcorn reported liking it less than those who got fresh. And people with a weak popcorn habit (i.e., those who didn’t usually eat popcorn at the movies) ate significantly more fresh popcorn than stale. But here’s the kicker – for people with a strong popcorn habit (i.e., those who always ordered popcorn at the movies) it didn’t matter how stale the popcorn was! They ate the same amount, whether it was an hour old, or seven days old.

That’s worth thinking about for a moment – people with a strong habit were eating terrible popcorn, not because they didn’t notice it was terrible, but because it didn’t matter. The behavior was automatic, not intentional. So if tasting like Styrofoam won’t keep you from eating something, what will?

The researchers found that there were, in fact, two effective ways to disrupt the automatic popcorn-eating.

First, you can disrupt the habit by changing the context. When they conducted the same study in the context of a conference room, rather than a movie theater, people with strong popcorn habits at the movie theater stopped eating the stale popcorn. The automatic popcorn-eating behavior wasn’t activated, because the situational cues were changed.

If you have a habit you’d like to break, spend some time thinking about the situations in which it most often occurs. If you snack in front of the TV at night, consider doing something else in the evenings for a while – reading a good book, spending time with friends or family, even surfing the web. Any alternative activity that is less likely to trigger mindless eating. If you just can’t give up your favorite TV shows, you might try rearranging the room or sitting in a different chair – anything that alters the context can help.

Second, you can disrupt a habit by changing the method of performance. In another study, the researchers found that asking habitual popcorn eaters who were in a movie theater to eat with their non-dominant hand, stopped them from eating the stale popcorn, too.

So if you can’t change the situation, you can change the way the habit gets executed. If you mindlessly eat or smoke with your right hand, try using your left. If you mindlessly drink from the glass that the bartender keeps refilling, try sitting at a table instead of the bar, so you’ll have to consciously get up and ask for a refill. Making the behavior a little more difficult or awkward to perform can be a great way to throw a wrench in the works.

Too often, we blame our failures on the wrong things. When it comes to ridding ourselves of bad habits, we usually chalk our difficulties up to a lack of commitment or willpower. But as I’ve argued in my new book, “Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals”, conquering your behavioral demons needs to start with understanding how they really work and applying the most effective strategy. In this case, success comes from not making it quite so easy for your autopilot to run the show.

March 2, 2012
A Quick List on… “How to deal with an addict in your life”

This week’s guest blog is written by Beverly Buncher, MA, PCC, CTPC is a Professional Life Coach, certified by the International Coach Federation and a Family Recovery Coach. As a Family Recovery Coach, Bev’s mission is to help families of addicts blaze the trail to sobriety in their homes.

How do you deal with an addict in your life?

In facing the fact that your loved one is struggling mightily with addiction, it is important to let go of any sense of being a victim of the situation. This simply is what is happening and you are a part of it. Up until now, you may have been part of the problem. Now you can either consciously continue to be part of the problem or volunteer to be part of the solution. If you prefer the latter, here are some tips to help you become part of the solution:

1. Get out of denial and face the elephant in the living room! Don’t enable
a. Allow him or her to experience the consequences of their behavior
b. Don’t fix the mistakes they make

2. Let go of the resentment
a. Let go of ongoing anger, nagging, judgment and disrespect

3. Treat the addict in your life with dignity and respect
a. Look for their positives
b. See them as sick not bad
c. Use a respectful tone of voice that reflects their humanness and their right to make their own choices
d. Focus on the good times

4. You can contribute to the addict’s well being and recover by being good to yourself
a. Work on your self-care
b. Pay attention to you, your needs, your foibles, your strengths and successes, and not those of the addict

5. Allow the addicted person to face their own responsibilities and consequences
a. Don’t go to the ‘heart attack’ level with your addict

6. Set boundaries that work for you. Accept the consequences of your boundary.

7. Get support so you don’t have to ‘go it alone’ (Alanon, Nar-Non meetings, a family recovery coach)

8. Be A Loving Mirror™ (BALM™)
a. Go to a calm place, calm yourself at will
b. When the addict is acting out in front of you, staying calm, listening, and thinking about it objectively
c. At the right time, in a calm manner, discuss what is happening and how it affects you
d. There are only four things that will happen to an addict: Recovery, Death, Institutions, or Jail
e. Find a new way, change your attitude, your response
f. Don’t contribute to the disease, contribute to the recovery. Be there for the recovery, not the addiction.
g. Have an inner shift when you are in a bad place. This is a place of healing our attitudes and healing ourselves.
h. Be a truth teller in a loving way.
i. Develop your inner calm, breathe, lower your heart rate,
ii. share in a dispassionate way
iii. no judgment, no rancor, no rage, no resentment

9. Get calm. Here are a couple of ways to do so:
a. Close your eyes, get comfortable take a deep breath in to the count of 4, hold it to the count of four and let it out to the count of four. Repeat this as needed to restore your calm and slow down your heart rate.
b. Sit in meditation daily. As soon as you sit down, allow yourself to experience the silence and peace underneath all thought and experience. Then, sit and watch your breath without trying to control it. Be aware of the life your breath has apart from you. Not trying to control your breath is a metaphor for not trying to control the addict in our lives. Do this for five minutes 3 times daily. After each time, stretch and feel the calm.

10. Grow your recovery with the 12 Keys to Sanity and watch yourself GROW!

Does this sound like a lot? Get support so you can do all of this with ease and know-how. Start by work individually with a Loving Mirror Family Recovery Coach or join a Loving Mirror Group for family members.

Beverly Buncher, MA, PCC, CTPC is a Professional Life Coach, certified by the International Coach Federation and a Family Recovery Coach. As a Family Recovery Coach, Bev’s mission is to help families of addicts blaze the trail to sobriety in their homes. She helps families of addicts reclaim their own peace of mind and teaches them how to become their addict’s best chance of recovery. As a family recovery coach she works with parents, spouses or families individually and in small groups to achieve their goals and dreams. You can send an email to bbuncher@beverlybuncher.com to set up a complimentary session.

February 19, 2012